A St Andrew pastor who robbed a church woman of a motor car and $60,000 was slapped with a two-year prison sentence when he appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court last Friday.

The sentence was handed down by Senior Magistrate Judith Pusey when Omar Johnson, 34, otherwise called ‘Preacher’ of Stony Hill, in St Andrew appeared in court.

Johnson was sentenced to serve two years each on two count of fraudulent conversion, but the sentence are to run concurrently.

The court heard that Johnson was given five cars by the 54-year-old complainant, who had invited him to perform pastoral duties at a church, which she had recently founded in Mountain View, St Andrew.

The court heard that when the complainant told Johnson to hand over the cars he returned four failed to return the other, which he had transferred in his name. The car was valued at $535,000.

The court also heard that Johnson was given $60,000 by the complainant to buy a music system for the church, but he allegedly used it to do something else.

On Friday, before the sentence was passed, Johnson’s lawyer Charles Williams told the magistrate that his client had heeded her advice and had prayed.

But the magistrate was not moved and instead enquired whether or not Johnson had brought any more money to compensate the complainant

Williams, in response, said that Johnson did not manage to come up with any more money to add to the $80,000 that he had previously paid over to the complainant.

Johnson, on his first appearance before the court, had indicated that he and the complainant were in a relationship and that she had given him the car as a gift. He claimed that she was upset because he sold it and did not give her any of the money. He later told the court that the complainant made up the allegations against him because she was upset at him for leaving her and going back to his wife.

The complainant, however, maintained that they were never in a relationship.

According to her, Johnson “broke her” within the two-month period of September to November 2014, that he worked with her and had caused her to go into depression.

— Tanesha Mundle